SQUOPPING

SPORTS

INCOMPLEAT WINX
RULES

To many people, "Tiddlywinks" is a
children's game in which winks are shot into a cup and everyone wonders where the tiddlies
are.* The image is a mindless game requiring only limited manual skill. To those familiar
with NATwA (North American Tiddlywinks Association), or similar organizations in
the British Isles, Winks is a complex strategical game with an interesting balance between
tactics and a numerous variety of dexterous skills. There is also a non-standard (perverse,
in winks argot) side to winks, which this publication will attempt to illustrate.

Winks does not have to be played or practiced in any one given way.
The winking environment, the equipment available, the number of players, and the
individual preferences of the people involved, has produced a good number of derivative
games that emphasize different aspects, indeed invent new aspects, of the game of winks.

Some perversions consist of manipulation of the rules of the parent
four colour game. One class emphasizes the potting side of the game under various
conditions, another the squopping angle. These games are useful for practicing specified
parts of the game. For variety, equipment is misused to provide a truly perverted class of
games, capable of offending purist winkers. Then there is an answer to the question of
whether winks is a sport or "merely a game". Winks lends itself very well to
sports simulations. Very complex rules have been developed that seem to animate the winks
to the status of players and change the player into the coach.

One thing true of many of the perversions to be to be described here
is that they are repeatedly being perverted. Perverting a game is essentially recognition
of the arbitrariness of the rules and changing them to suit one's fancy.

* Recent research has shown that as late as 1894 tiddlies
was a well defined term.

The following is a short list of winking terms needed
to understand the game descriptions that follow. For information on other winking terms,
consult the official rule book. [or the Lexicon of
Tiddlywinks]

Equipment
Winks is played on a felt surface (mat), using a larger circular plastic counter (squidger)
to flick small plastic counters (winks), either to another position on the mat or
into a cup (pot).

Perversion
Any variation from the four colour game described in the offic[i]al rule book. Perversion
is not intended to indicate any negative connotation, only change.

To pot
Attempt to shoot a wink into the cup. In most games an additional shot is awarded for
successful pots. Players have "potted out" when all of their winks are in the
pot.

To squop
Any wink covered, however slightly, by another wink, is considered squopped. In many games
one of the chief goals is to squop your opponents['] winks, as a squopped wink may not be
played. When all the winks of one player are squopped, that player is "squopped
out".

Loss of turn
In most games the shooting of a wink off the playing surface (mat) is penalized by
the offending player losing his or her turn.

Squidge off
All players shoot one wink from their baseline (starting point) towards the pot. The
player landing closest to (or, better yet in) the pot, wins the squidge off. In some games
the squidge off is used solely to determine the playing order and the winks are returned
to the baseline for the game.

End of game
Some games have a specified time limit, others are played until a particular result occurs
- such as players being potted out or squopped out.

Back to the table
of contents for Sunshine's Alleghany Airlines Book Club Presents catalog of
tiddlywinks perversions.

If you have your own tiddlywinks perversions, send them to Rick Tucker